I just cannot bring myself to use an artificial tree, but we do buy living trees and then give them to a friend to plant after Christmas so that they are serving a useful purpose other than filling land fills or becoming mulch.

We have used both over the years. In the interest of safety, we now use artificial trees. They look so real and they can stay up longer. We usually leave our tree up until 1/6. Set up and clean up are much easier, too!